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... if you encounter a toilet that flushes backwards, you're using a bidet
You're referring to the swirling of draining water: The rotation of the earth gives rise to an effect that tends to accelerate draining water in a clockwise direction in the Northern hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.
PS: When I flushed my first US "dunny bowl" I got worried that the damn thing was going to overflow, the water kept flowing and swirling higher and higher up the bowl for what seemed like an eternity.
In Australia we're very water-conscious due to the country being so dry and our dunnies flush very efficiently water-wise, they dump water forcefully for a short burst to flush the crap down (you will never see our dunnies swirling, there's not enough water in the bowl, unless you've got plumbing issues).
I never understood the long, slow swirling of US dunnies, it seems to promote smearing the entire bowl with faecal matter!
... if you encounter a toilet that flushes backwards, you're using a bidet
You're referring to the swirling of draining water: The rotation of the earth gives rise to an effect that tends to accelerate draining water in a clockwise direction in the Northern hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.
PS: When I flushed my first US "dunny bowl" I got worried that the damn thing was going to overflow, the water kept flowing and swirling higher and higher up the bowl for what seemed like an eternity.
In Australia we're very water-conscious due to the country being so dry and our dunnies flush very efficiently water-wise, they dump water forcefully for a short burst to flush the crap down (you will never see our dunnies swirling, there's not enough water in the bowl, unless you've got plumbing issues).
I never understood the long, slow swirling of US dunnies, it seems to promote smearing the entire bowl with faecal matter!
Next you are going to try to explain to me that my picture below is not true.
C vs F. For all engineering, I prefer C. For weather, it still makes sense to use what people here are used to, F.
When you are talking heat treating furnaces, C or F.... who has a real feel for that? 1000* is just going to kill you instantly, no matter if C or F. So, again... use C and meld with the rest of the world.
I work mostly in SAE units, but also some in metric. As a result, I have a pretty good idea what someone is talking about whether they say 3 inches or 8cm. Yet if you talk to the average person, saying something is 6mm wide will most likely result in a blank stare until you say it's about 1/4". People (especially car guys) have seen a 1/4" ratchet, but only the import guys know that it is roughly the same as an M6 bolt.
Imperial systems are optimized for more day-to-day use by people who didn't have higher math skills and wanted to avoid fractions as much as possible.
Imperial units are terrible for day to day use by laypersons.
What's the next wrench size up in the tray from 12mm? 13mm.
What's the next wrench size up from 1/2? Well, probably 9/16, but might be 17/32 if it's an expensive wrench set, or 5/8 if it's a really cheap one. You find constantly having to do division in your head easier than adding one to something?
A foot is divided into 12 inches. But an inch is never divided into 12 of anything, nor does "12 feet" equal anything in particular. And why even bother with having three feet be a yard, if the next common measurement after that is a mile, which is 1,760 yards? Only we typically express a mile as being 5,280 feet. Hell, if we're going to skip over the yard for that purpose, why not have a mile be 63,360 inches?
1 cc of water is, for all intents and purposes, 1ml and 1 gram. And, in the kitchen, mayonnaise weighs close enough to water for them to be the same. So it's easy for me to add 85 ml of mayo to a recipe without needing to then wash a measuring cup afterwards, I just put in 85 grams.
How many ounces does a third of a cup of mayo weigh? Lemme get the calculator. Hell, a ounce of water doesn't even weigh an ounce under the standard conditions.
My car averages about 19 miles to the gallon. So how many gallons will I require to drive 50 miles? Gotta do division and then multiplication. When I lived in Germany, my car averaged about 12 liters per 100 km. How many liters will I need to drive 50km? Six.
Imperial units are terrible for day to day use by laypersons.
These days, sure. What I said was that historically they made a lot more sense in a world where people needed to be able to divide up quantities without needing to use non-integer quantities. What's a third of 10? Or a quarter of it? Much easier with 12, 60, 144, or 240, or any of the other bizarre numbers used in older style unit systems.
What I find baffling is the way everyone freaks out the most about temperature scales, the one where it matters the least to the lay person.
What's a third of 10? Or a quarter of it? Much easier with 12, 60, 144, or 240, or any of the other bizarre numbers used in older style unit systems.
3.33... and 2.5, respectively.
I'd need a pencil to tell you what a third of 144 is. I don't find that easier.
Originally Posted by codrus
What I find baffling is the way everyone freaks out the most about temperature scales, the one where it matters the least to the lay person.
I don't.
Temperature isn't a dimensional measurement of something physical. So, like measurements of electrical voltage or mechanical power, it's inherently going to be somewhat arbitrary.
I find Celsius to be aesthetically pleasing because of the whole "relates directly to the three most common physical states of water" thing, but that doesn't make it any harder or easier to use than Fahrenheit or Rømer. And they're way less insane than the Dalí scale, which gives readings such as "Skull with Its Lyric Appendage Leaning on a Night Table which Should Have the Exact Temperature of a Cardinal's Nest."
Personally, I only tend to freak out about Imperial vs. Rebel when I realize that I need a wrench exactly one size larger or smaller than the one I have in my hand. If they're all perfectly in order, that's fine. But if they're strewn randomly in a toolbox, I hate having to think about "ok, what's the next size after 3/8," rather than just knowing "6mm doesn't quite fit, so I'll grab the 7." Linearly sequential and non-fractional is easier for machines that do their thinking with wet meat.
I work mostly in SAE units, but also some in metric. As a result, I have a pretty good idea what someone is talking about whether they say 3 inches or 8cm. Yet if you talk to the average person, saying something is 6mm wide will most likely result in a blank stare until you say it's about 1/4". People (especially car guys) have seen a 1/4" ratchet, but only the import guys know that it is roughly the same as an M6 bolt.
Picture unrelated (I always wanted to say that):
The "the average person" uses metric so either wouldn't have a clue what 1/4" inch is or may know that it's 25.4mm, then mentally divide that by 4.
The "average person" knows the size of 1mm so multiplying it by 6mm isn't a struggle.
The "average person" wouldn't know that water freezes at 32*F or how to interpret a Fahrenheit value.
The "average person" wouldn't have a clue about all the values needed to convert Imperial units to other Imperial units - there's no need to.
You guys from the US keep forgetting the fact that only 3 countries in the world still use the Imperial system, the US, Liberia and Myanmar (the UK use both which is just plain nuts).
Picture unrelated (there's just not enough Salma Hayek on this site):
I think about this from time to time. And what amazes me the most is still that they made the decision to shoot that scene with practical lighting effects.
I mean, I'm a little surprised that the decided to shoot it with a practical car in the first place, but then even more so that they went through that extra little bit of trouble to do the halo in-camera, rather than just glomming it on in post along with all of the other CG.
I still cant get over the mixing of units when measuring height.
12' 3" = 12.25' 12' 6" = 12.5' 12' 9" = 12.75'
^ This.
And, getting back to temperature, even though Fahrenheit is capriciously arbitrary, at least it's the ONE thing that we don't fractionalize. The average human body temperature isn't 98 5/8°, it's 98.6°.
Why is that? Why use sane numbers ONLY to describe an insane unit of measurement?
Unlike whiskey. That comes in fifths.
Fifths of what? Well, used to be a fifth of a gallon, which was a very obvious and intuitive quantity: 25 3⁄5 ounces. [/sarcasm] Nowadays, though it's not even that anymore. It's 750ml, which is a fifth of 0.99 metric gallons.
Originally Posted by Lokiel
(Salma Hayek)
Meh.
Last edited by Joe Perez; 06-16-2022 at 02:24 PM.
Reason: Decimal place in wrong location)
06-14-2022, 11:39 PM
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